This elite, bound together not by party or even ideology but by mutually advantageous relationships, holds sway over a small and politically disorganized middle class and a large but well-beaten population of the poor.

Hiroshi Toda was winding down his successful career as a global capital markets expert at Nomura Securities Co., his colleagues and friends assumed he would follow a well-beaten path to a top local job at a big

Saturday's race at Newcastle went poorly for Binocular last season, when he was a well-beaten fifth at odds-on, but, after a couple of recent schooling sessions, Henderson is confident that the six-year-old will do himself justice this time.